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Matt Garza Guarantees He’ll Be Ready to Go Next Year and Other Bullets

The Wife and I saw ‘This is 40’ last night, which was enjoyable, even if not as good as Judd Apatow’s first two features. ‘LOST’ played a prominent role, which is obviously wonderful (though it was the spoileriest of spoilers for anyone who hasn’t yet watched the show), but the Cubs came in for a it’ll-be-a-long-time-before-they-win dig. I can’t be sure, but it sounded like an ad-libbed Paul Rudd Albert Brooks line. Boo …

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Matt Garza continues to say all the right things about his recovery from a stress reaction in his elbow, which kept him out for all of the second half in 2012. In an interview with CSN’s Dave Kaplan, Garza said he’s still feeling great. “If Spring Training started tomorrow, I would be ready to go,” he said. “I’m not ready to pitch six innings today, but I will be ready to go when the season starts. I will be ready to go Opening Day, that’s guaranteed.” Obviously Garza’s health matters in a great many ways tied to the Cubs’ performance, to his own performance, to his own contract, to the Cubs’ trade prospects, and so on and so on. For now, it’s enough to just know that Garza being fully healthy and effective early in 2013 is a good thing for everyone involved. So let’s hope Garza continues his recovery.

Maury Brown considers the possibility that we’ve feared around here – that local TV deals are approaching a bubble burst. If it pops before the Cubs get theirs, they could be at a disadvantage financially when compared to the big boys for a looooong time. Here’s hoping they are working feverishly to buy out both the WGN deal (expiring after 2014) and the CSN deal (expiring after 2019), with an eye toward a reworked deal with either or both network, or something else entirely. (I’ll have a lot more on this topic soon.)

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You can partially thank Matt Garza for Edwin Jackson signing with the Cubs. He sold his former teammate on the idea of coming to Chicago. “I told Edwin that he has to approach the season in spring training mode, where everything is day baseball,” Garza told Dave Kaplan. “He also has to be ready to handle 80 degree temperatures in Arizona and then 30’s and 40’s in Chicago and the Midwest. I also told him that as a father [Jackson and his wife have a young son], that he will love day games because he will be home to have dinner with his family and he can take his kids to school when we are on a homestand. I told him he would love playing in Chicago.”

The former long-time umpire clubhouse attendant at Wrigley Field, Jimmy Farrell, was well-liked and respected, and passed away this week at 91.

Carrie Muskat chats, and discusses the lack of late games on Fridays at Wrigley, and compares Edwin Jackson to Anibal Sanchez.

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